[wind blowing]
[dramatic music]
- NARRATOR: Each fall, as the leaves change color
and the temperature drops,
members of the Birkner family gather on their ranch
in the Texas hill country.
From three-year-old Kyler to ninety-eight-year-old Mabel,
five generations under one roof, together,
to celebrate Thanksgiving.
[gentle music]
♪ ♪
- I was making $400 a month
and trying to raise three boys.
We didn't have any money to go all over the country
for vacations, so we'd come up here and fish and build
deer stands and stuff, getting ready for fall hunting.
- NARRATOR: Preparing for the hunt, for Skeet Birkner,
it's a ritual that dates back to his boyhood,
growing up during the Great Depression
when food like deer and turkey meat
helped sustain the family during some very tough times.
Today, the Birkners hunt and fish as part of a legacy...
- BOY: That's not real, either.
- No, that's a cap gun.
- NARRATOR: ...passed down from parent to child.
- JERIKAY: Hunter safety, hunter safety, baby.
Don't point it at people.
There you go, it's ok.
- NARRATOR: To understand the Birkners and their ties
to the land, it helps to know a little bit about their history,
starting with Skeet's mother, 98-year-old Mabel.
Mabel Green was the only girl out of nine children.
Her parents were farmers in the hill country of central Texas.
To earn money, the family raised cotton and corn.
To eat, they hunted and grew their own vegetables.
When she was 19, Mabel married Joe Birkner.
Together, they raised 10 kids and ran a 400-acre dairy farm.
Each child played an important role in the family business,
and all of them learned the meaning of hard work.
- SKEET: Used to milk 150 head of cows twice a day.
Get up twelve o'clock at night.
Twelve o'clock in the daytime, milk cows.
Seven days a week.
And ah, that's all I know is land.
[gentle music]
♪ ♪
- JERIKAY: Good shot!
- JOEY: In the nose!
- You need to be able to shoot from a lot of
different positions.
And do your breathing, ok?
I am one of the Birkners, but not one of the hunting Birkners.
So, there was a little bit of an adjustment on the part of the
family to me and me to the family.
Look where you want the arrow to go.
But you know with hunting, like everything else that the
Birkners do, there's a real underpinning of family,
feeling, and loyalty, and they're not judgmental about it.
- JOE: I'm getting closer and closer.
[air pistol shot]
- JERIKAY: They have a very strong hunting ethos,
so they wanted me to respect that in them.
- Is this my last one?
- MAN: One more.
[exhales]
- JERIKAY: And not to be judgmental of them
and to be tolerant of what they like to do.
And they afforded me the same respect for my feelings.
- Whoa!
- Watch where you're pointing it.
Point it at the target.
[gentle music]
- JERIKAY: Ok, grandmother, happy hunting.
Go get 'em.
- We, we are fixin' to go after 'em.
[gentle music]
- MABEL: I appreciate you helping me,
I know it's trouble to you.
- SKEET: No.
[gentle music]
♪ ♪
- I'll get it.
It's over here, Mother.
I'll get it.
- MABEL: Don't let it slide.
I got it.
- NARRATOR: Mabel Birkner shot her first deer at about the
same time Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic
and women got the right to vote.
- Whatever comes in, the first thing that comes in,
a buck or a doe, that's what we want.
We're not taking any chances on waiting for the big one.
When you get 98 years old, you don't wait for something.
You just go ahead and do it.
- MABEL: But I think it's wonderful.
I enjoy this.
I'd stay here by myself.
- SKEET: Oh, you would?
- MABEL: [affirmative] Mm, hmm.
- We'll just sit here and enjoy the pretty trees.
- Sure will.
- SKEET: Now you see what we're looking at.
We're looking at three deer down there
and what I want you to do
is shoot the one on this side.
That biggest one.
Take your time put your crosshairs on it and shoot him.
Squeeze it easy.
[gunshot]
Oh, I think you hit him!
Whew!
[laughing]
I believe you hit him.
Okay.
- BRIT: Did you see that deer this morning sitting in the
back of the mule?
- BOY: Yeah.
- BRIT: I haven't been hunting in nine or ten years,
but I never killed anything that big.
- BOY: Can you count them?
- BRIT: I can count them.
Let's see-- there's one, two,
three on that side.
And on this side, there's one little one, so that's four.
Five, six, seven.
- Five, six, seven?
- Yep.
So that's a seven point.
[gentle music]
- NARRATOR: In a few hours, most of the Birkners
will go their separate ways.
No matter where they end up,
all roads lead back here,
to the family ranch.
- SKEET: Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this
season of the year.
For Thanksgiving, and for such a beautiful scene
and the trees and the river and the grass.
And we thank you for a wonderful hunt this morning.
And for grandmother and all the kids.
Amen.
- Amen.
- BOY: Grandma, can you remember any times that you've missed?
- MABEL: I don't talk about that.
[family laughs]